Bismilaah
20-07-05, 02:00
A SAUDI OPPOSITIONIST'S VIEW: AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. MUHAMMAD AL-MASSARI
By Mahan Abedin
A telephone interview conducted on November 26, 2003, by Terrorism
Monitor correspondent Mahan Abedin with the head of the London-based
Saudi opposition group, Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights
(CDLR), Dr. Muhammad al-Massari. (Note: TM = Terrorism Monitor and MM = Dr. Muhammad al-Massari)
TM: What kind of Islamic ideology does the Committee for the Defence
of Legitimate Rights promote? Do you consider yourself a Wahabi
organization?
MM: The word Wahabi has become a misnomer. The U.S., for example, uses it to denote Jihadists. They called the Taliban Wahabists, but this
was not true. Wahabism has several essential ingredients, and we don't
consider ourselves to be Wahabi. We do, however, share the Jihadi
spirit.
TM: Then in what way does your version of Islam differ from the
official religious establishment in Saudi Arabia?
MM: The official clergy are basically a government party. They are
well organized. Their view is that the regime has flaws but these can
be corrected from the "inside." They basically believe that the regime
is Islamic and thus legitimate.
TM: How about the dissident clerics. Do your views differ from theirs?
MM: The radical forces can roughly be divided into two branches:
First, there are the Jihadists, who say the regime is Kufr (i.e.,
belonging to the realm of the disbelievers), therefore it has to be
fought and destroyed.
Secondly, there are people [who] say indeed the regime is Kufr, but
this does not mean that everybody who serves the regime is a
disbeliever. They say the regime has to be overthrown but not
necessarily through violent means alone. This is the view of the CDLR.
TM: I take that to mean you believe violence is needed to engineer the
collapse of the regime.
MM: We believe that any way to remove the regime is legitimate.
However, we are more inclined to move the masses toward some kind of
revolt or popular uprising, perhaps along the lines of the French and
Iranian revolutions. We also do not rule out winning over powerful
factions in the military and subsequently convince them to move
against the regime. This will minimize bloodshed. But I should add
that the legal and moral issues are exceedingly complex!
TM: There are of course dissident forces both inside and outside the
country who do not want the regime to go in its entirety.
MM: There is an in-between group. They are mostly from a Salafi
background, [who] have been influenced by the "Muslim Brotherhood."
Most of them take inspiration from Mohammad Sorour and hence they are called the Sorouri Group. [2] They are reluctant to move against the
regime. They believe it has many faults, but they hesitate before
calling for its overthrow. They possibly have the best intentions, but
they lack any coherent program or efficient methodology. I do not
believe that they will ever be a real threat to the regime.
TM: There are of course those who say the Saudi royal family has
become so embedded as an institution that it now represents Saudi
national consciousness. Therefore, getting rid of it would cause an
enormous amount of harm to the country. How do you respond to these
people?
MM: It is mostly an issue of symbolism. And of course, symbolism is
important in understanding the behavior of the wider masses towards
the political realities. But never forget that the al-Sauds were once
a small and irrelevant tribe. By aligning themselves with the Wahabi
movement they evolved, over two and a half centuries, into the powerful establishment we see today. The legitimacy of the regime has
always rested on its claim to be Islamic. That has been undermined, so
everything else is coming under question. And most people are aware of
this. The whole structure of the regime is now in peril. What you call
Saudi national consciousness never existed although the regime tried
to create something in that direction in the last thirty years.
TM: Are the people really that critical of the regime?
MM: There was a recent poll in Kuwait, which is regarded as much more
secular and pro-Western than Saudi Arabia, in which 74.5 percent of
respondents said that they sympathized with bin Laden and consider him
to be a hero. If a similar poll was conducted in Saudi Arabia, I am
sure that over 85 percent would register approval with bin Laden.
TM: What tactics does CDLR use to engineer the collapse of the regime?
Do you follow the so-called Horizontal Trend Movement of MIRA? [3]
MM: Yes we are very strong horizontally. But we have also developed
strong theoretical and scholarly capabilities. We admire Hizb al-
Tahrir because they have developed a constitution of the Islamic
state. They have worked out all the characteristics of the Islamic
state, from women's rights to elections. Clearly their constitution
contains certain scholarly and theological biases, but the important
point is that nobody else has done this before. Of course we disagree
with many aspects and details of Hizb-al-Tahrir's constitution, but at
least they have put something on the table. So we are very strong
theoretically. We do have some vertical capabilities, but our activist
network and organization is not properly structured. We are hoping to
improve this in the future through the formal establishment of a
properly organized and well-structured political party.
TM: How do your views differ from those of Osama bin Laden?
MM: Osama bin Laden is a military leader. He was appointed by the
Afghans as Amir of the Arab Mujahedin. Because he has been engaged in fighting for decades, OBL and his followers have not had time to study
recent developments and innovations in Islamic politics and
philosophy. They have no detailed theory of the Islamic state in whose
cause they are fighting. They believe in the Islamic state in a very
general sense, and they have no real program. This is the essential
difference between OBL and CDLR. Moreover, bin Laden's obsessive
concentration on the U.S. is not really wise. Bin Laden forgot or
neglected for tactical reasons that the U.S. did not invade Saudi
Arabia. It was invited in by the Saudi royal family.
TM: There are some people in the U.S. who claim that bin Laden
receives support from certain quarters in the Saudi regime.
MM: There are two types of people in the regime who support bin Laden:
1) Some are sincerely fed up with the corruption and lack of respect
for Islam.
2) The others hope to use the Jihadis for their "power game" inside
the royal family. Turki Al-Faisal, the ex-intelligence chief and
current Saudi ambassador in London, is one of the prime suspects.
TM: There have been suggestions that CDLR, and in particular Dr.
Muhammad Massari, are increasingly promoting a pan-Islamic agenda and are no longer exclusively focused on Saudi Arabia. How do you respond to these charges?
MM: Any Islamic movement worth its salt has to become international.
When the Saudis passed the Saudi citizenship law in 1932, the regime
ceased to be an Islamic order. An Islamic state has to be internationalist and inclusive. Islamic tenets demand nothing less. But really we at CDLR remain focused on Saudi Arabia. We may publish an article against Musharaf or any other leader from time to time, but on the whole our focus is on Saudi Arabia.
TM: You have mentioned Hizb-al-Tahrir and said you admire them. Is it
not the case that Hizb-al-Tahrir is primarily a British Islamic party?
MM: No, this is a misconception. Hizb-al-Tahrir is still a prime party
in Jordan, Palestine and even Pakistan. The Pakistanis are so
terrified of them that they have recently moved against the party. In
fact they are thinking of banning it. The party is also very strong in
Uzbekistan. And of course Hizb-al-Tahrir was the mother of most Jihadi
groups in Egypt.
TM: Now, focusing back on Saudi Arabia, do you think the Saudi regime
will be able to orchestrate a peaceful transition after King Fahd's
death?
MM: Well, the U.S. pressure on them is enormous. In fact, American
pressure has been so great that the possibility of internal squabbles
escalating into open fighting has been reduced. The Saudi regime is
basically made up of five pillars or entities. These are:
1) Al-Jawharah bint Ibraheem, the youngest and favorite wife of King
Fahd. She guards her influence zealously for the benefit of her son,
Abdul-Azeez. She controls the royal office and the seals. She is well-
educated and sophisticated.
2) Abdullah. He is the Crown Prince and exerts control through the
National Guards and has relatively good tribal connections.
3) Sultan. He controls the Defense Ministry in addition to enormous
financial assets.
4) Nayef. He controls the internal police apparatus. This is a
considerable force numbering hundreds of thousands.
5) Salman. He controls the media and has a strong presence in
intellectual circles and some middle class factions.
TM: So there is a fine balancing act between all these factions.
MM: Yes! And the most likely scenario is that Abdullah will become a
nominal King, and Sultan will become Crown Prince. The regime has no
vision, no program, no strategy and no long term planning. They just
manage tactically from day to day with one sole objective: To stay in
power at any price.
By Mahan Abedin
A telephone interview conducted on November 26, 2003, by Terrorism
Monitor correspondent Mahan Abedin with the head of the London-based
Saudi opposition group, Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights
(CDLR), Dr. Muhammad al-Massari. (Note: TM = Terrorism Monitor and MM = Dr. Muhammad al-Massari)
TM: What kind of Islamic ideology does the Committee for the Defence
of Legitimate Rights promote? Do you consider yourself a Wahabi
organization?
MM: The word Wahabi has become a misnomer. The U.S., for example, uses it to denote Jihadists. They called the Taliban Wahabists, but this
was not true. Wahabism has several essential ingredients, and we don't
consider ourselves to be Wahabi. We do, however, share the Jihadi
spirit.
TM: Then in what way does your version of Islam differ from the
official religious establishment in Saudi Arabia?
MM: The official clergy are basically a government party. They are
well organized. Their view is that the regime has flaws but these can
be corrected from the "inside." They basically believe that the regime
is Islamic and thus legitimate.
TM: How about the dissident clerics. Do your views differ from theirs?
MM: The radical forces can roughly be divided into two branches:
First, there are the Jihadists, who say the regime is Kufr (i.e.,
belonging to the realm of the disbelievers), therefore it has to be
fought and destroyed.
Secondly, there are people [who] say indeed the regime is Kufr, but
this does not mean that everybody who serves the regime is a
disbeliever. They say the regime has to be overthrown but not
necessarily through violent means alone. This is the view of the CDLR.
TM: I take that to mean you believe violence is needed to engineer the
collapse of the regime.
MM: We believe that any way to remove the regime is legitimate.
However, we are more inclined to move the masses toward some kind of
revolt or popular uprising, perhaps along the lines of the French and
Iranian revolutions. We also do not rule out winning over powerful
factions in the military and subsequently convince them to move
against the regime. This will minimize bloodshed. But I should add
that the legal and moral issues are exceedingly complex!
TM: There are of course dissident forces both inside and outside the
country who do not want the regime to go in its entirety.
MM: There is an in-between group. They are mostly from a Salafi
background, [who] have been influenced by the "Muslim Brotherhood."
Most of them take inspiration from Mohammad Sorour and hence they are called the Sorouri Group. [2] They are reluctant to move against the
regime. They believe it has many faults, but they hesitate before
calling for its overthrow. They possibly have the best intentions, but
they lack any coherent program or efficient methodology. I do not
believe that they will ever be a real threat to the regime.
TM: There are of course those who say the Saudi royal family has
become so embedded as an institution that it now represents Saudi
national consciousness. Therefore, getting rid of it would cause an
enormous amount of harm to the country. How do you respond to these
people?
MM: It is mostly an issue of symbolism. And of course, symbolism is
important in understanding the behavior of the wider masses towards
the political realities. But never forget that the al-Sauds were once
a small and irrelevant tribe. By aligning themselves with the Wahabi
movement they evolved, over two and a half centuries, into the powerful establishment we see today. The legitimacy of the regime has
always rested on its claim to be Islamic. That has been undermined, so
everything else is coming under question. And most people are aware of
this. The whole structure of the regime is now in peril. What you call
Saudi national consciousness never existed although the regime tried
to create something in that direction in the last thirty years.
TM: Are the people really that critical of the regime?
MM: There was a recent poll in Kuwait, which is regarded as much more
secular and pro-Western than Saudi Arabia, in which 74.5 percent of
respondents said that they sympathized with bin Laden and consider him
to be a hero. If a similar poll was conducted in Saudi Arabia, I am
sure that over 85 percent would register approval with bin Laden.
TM: What tactics does CDLR use to engineer the collapse of the regime?
Do you follow the so-called Horizontal Trend Movement of MIRA? [3]
MM: Yes we are very strong horizontally. But we have also developed
strong theoretical and scholarly capabilities. We admire Hizb al-
Tahrir because they have developed a constitution of the Islamic
state. They have worked out all the characteristics of the Islamic
state, from women's rights to elections. Clearly their constitution
contains certain scholarly and theological biases, but the important
point is that nobody else has done this before. Of course we disagree
with many aspects and details of Hizb-al-Tahrir's constitution, but at
least they have put something on the table. So we are very strong
theoretically. We do have some vertical capabilities, but our activist
network and organization is not properly structured. We are hoping to
improve this in the future through the formal establishment of a
properly organized and well-structured political party.
TM: How do your views differ from those of Osama bin Laden?
MM: Osama bin Laden is a military leader. He was appointed by the
Afghans as Amir of the Arab Mujahedin. Because he has been engaged in fighting for decades, OBL and his followers have not had time to study
recent developments and innovations in Islamic politics and
philosophy. They have no detailed theory of the Islamic state in whose
cause they are fighting. They believe in the Islamic state in a very
general sense, and they have no real program. This is the essential
difference between OBL and CDLR. Moreover, bin Laden's obsessive
concentration on the U.S. is not really wise. Bin Laden forgot or
neglected for tactical reasons that the U.S. did not invade Saudi
Arabia. It was invited in by the Saudi royal family.
TM: There are some people in the U.S. who claim that bin Laden
receives support from certain quarters in the Saudi regime.
MM: There are two types of people in the regime who support bin Laden:
1) Some are sincerely fed up with the corruption and lack of respect
for Islam.
2) The others hope to use the Jihadis for their "power game" inside
the royal family. Turki Al-Faisal, the ex-intelligence chief and
current Saudi ambassador in London, is one of the prime suspects.
TM: There have been suggestions that CDLR, and in particular Dr.
Muhammad Massari, are increasingly promoting a pan-Islamic agenda and are no longer exclusively focused on Saudi Arabia. How do you respond to these charges?
MM: Any Islamic movement worth its salt has to become international.
When the Saudis passed the Saudi citizenship law in 1932, the regime
ceased to be an Islamic order. An Islamic state has to be internationalist and inclusive. Islamic tenets demand nothing less. But really we at CDLR remain focused on Saudi Arabia. We may publish an article against Musharaf or any other leader from time to time, but on the whole our focus is on Saudi Arabia.
TM: You have mentioned Hizb-al-Tahrir and said you admire them. Is it
not the case that Hizb-al-Tahrir is primarily a British Islamic party?
MM: No, this is a misconception. Hizb-al-Tahrir is still a prime party
in Jordan, Palestine and even Pakistan. The Pakistanis are so
terrified of them that they have recently moved against the party. In
fact they are thinking of banning it. The party is also very strong in
Uzbekistan. And of course Hizb-al-Tahrir was the mother of most Jihadi
groups in Egypt.
TM: Now, focusing back on Saudi Arabia, do you think the Saudi regime
will be able to orchestrate a peaceful transition after King Fahd's
death?
MM: Well, the U.S. pressure on them is enormous. In fact, American
pressure has been so great that the possibility of internal squabbles
escalating into open fighting has been reduced. The Saudi regime is
basically made up of five pillars or entities. These are:
1) Al-Jawharah bint Ibraheem, the youngest and favorite wife of King
Fahd. She guards her influence zealously for the benefit of her son,
Abdul-Azeez. She controls the royal office and the seals. She is well-
educated and sophisticated.
2) Abdullah. He is the Crown Prince and exerts control through the
National Guards and has relatively good tribal connections.
3) Sultan. He controls the Defense Ministry in addition to enormous
financial assets.
4) Nayef. He controls the internal police apparatus. This is a
considerable force numbering hundreds of thousands.
5) Salman. He controls the media and has a strong presence in
intellectual circles and some middle class factions.
TM: So there is a fine balancing act between all these factions.
MM: Yes! And the most likely scenario is that Abdullah will become a
nominal King, and Sultan will become Crown Prince. The regime has no
vision, no program, no strategy and no long term planning. They just
manage tactically from day to day with one sole objective: To stay in
power at any price.